Caprese Pasta Bowls

Happy Monday!

A couple weeks ago, a friend and I had a girls' night/watercolor painting lesson/hang out and drink wine night. We wanted to cook something that would be a good sit-on-the-couch-and-eat while drinking our wine kind of dinner. If you've ever had one of those days... So she suggested Caprese Pasta Bowls. Any dish that involves pasta and cheese ALWAYS sounds good to me. They were perfect! When I recreated the dish for dinner at home the next week, I added some leftover diced chicken I had grilled the night before, so it would meet the "meat for dinner" criteria we have in our household :) But it was definitely just as great without the meat! Either way, this comes together in less than 30 minutes and will definitely go on the weeknight meal list in our house!

Caprese Pasta Bowls

Cheese!

This dish comes together so quickly too. By the time the pasta is finished, the sauce and toppings are ready to go. Start with any short cut of pasta you like. I prefer the ditalini for this dish, since they are the perfect size for scooping a big spoonful at once. Follow the directions on the package for your pasta! 

Tiny! You get to eat a million of them in one serving, always a plus...

While you're waiting on your pasta, heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet. Once it's hot, add 3-4 cloves diced garlic. Sauté for 30 seconds - 1 minute, only until the garlic is fragrant. Garlic burns quickly, so don't let it get brown! Next add 4 diced Roma tomatoes to the skillet, and stir them in to the garlic.
I had some of these guys on hand I needed to use as well, so they went in to the skillet too :) This is one of those recipes where you can definitely adjust the amount of tomatoes and garlic to taste!

While the tomatoes are saucing it up in the skillet, cube 2 oz fresh mozzarella and chop a few leaves of basil. Cheese. And basil. How could you not want to make this right away??? Set them aside for now!

Who knew cheese and basil were so photogenic?

When the pasta is done to your preference, drain, and add to the skillet with the tomatoes and garlic. Once the tomato and pasta are mixed well, scoop into a bowl and top with the cheese and basil. If you dump the cheese directly into the skillet, you get melty sauce, instead of little squishy cubes mixed throughout your bowl. Which are better in this case :)

Caprese Pasta Bowls
Serves 2

Ingredients:
Short cut pasta (I prefer ditalini here!)
2 tbsp olive oil
3-4 cloves of garlic, diced
4 diced Roma tomatoes (definitely add 2ish more if you're a tomato lover)
2 oz fresh mozzarella, cubed
6 leaves fresh basil, chopped

Directions:

1. Follow directions on pasta for 2 servings. 
2. Heat olive oil in skillet on medium until shimmering and hot. Add garlic, sautéing just until fragrant but not browned, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.
3. Add diced tomatoes and juices to skillet and season with salt. Reduce heat to a simmer.
4. Combine cooked pasta with tomatoes in skillet. Scoop into bowls and add 1 oz mozzarella and half the chopped basil to each bowl. Enjoy!

Hi there, Dear Readers (er... probably just Adrienne)!

So, I feel like I should get a couple of things out there right off the bat.  First things first-- I rarely know what I want to eat for dinner.  It's an awful curse which leads me to spend more time than necessary deciding on a meal.  It's not even a matter of decision really, I just cannot think of what my options are.  I become hangry (see also: so hungry I am angry), and my mind just goes blank!  It's a terrible cross for a hungry person to bear.  Second and lastly, let's face it... I'm really just not a very good cook, but I try.  I have all three of Alton Brown's "Good Eats" cookbooks because I have dreams that one day, I can cook something "ambitious" (by my own standards) that I won't have to throw in the trash.  I'm a huge fan of cooking shows on The Cooking Channel, and even Chopped. Once that basket of ingredients is revealed, I immediately start playing along at home to devise a meal that would satisfy the sophisticated palettes of Ted Allen and the other judges.  If only I could live vicariously through these chefs and actually create delicious, and visually appetizing, meals in my own kitchen, and not just hypothetically.  On top of everything, about a year ago I discovered a gluten intolerance, which makes things all the more difficult.

Now that I've got that off my chest, let me move on to Tuesday night's meal. Salmon croquettes!  Often when visiting my dad for the weekend, my step-mom would make these.  Pronounced incorrectly: SAL-mon croquettes, and we often had them with English peas... which is exactly how I recreated this for my dinner. After a brief chat with my dad on ingredients and the process, off to the grocery store I went (where I was followed by a creepy man, and almost kidnapped) to get my ingredients.

Ingredients:
1 can salmon (I get the kind that comes in the red can, "Bay Beauty Pink Salmon", because that is what my step-mom always used)

1/2 green bell pepper
Depending on the size 1/4-1/2 yellow onion (I used vidalia because they are my favorite)
1 egg
a little bit of flour (I used a gluten-free all-purpose mix)
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. Open up your can of salmon because you need to get the bones out.  Per my dad's instruction, you do not have to remove all of those tiny little bones because you will not choke on these and die, thankfully. I was genuinely concerned about that.  My salmon was in about 4 pieces in the can, and one of them had the spine attached.  It was pretty easy to pull out in one piece and just throw away.  As mentioned, you do not have to remove all of the the little bones, but as I broke up my salmon with my hands to put into the mixing bowl (mentioned below), I tried to pull out as many as I could- I believe I got most of them.  There was also some of the skin on those 4 pieces, and I just peeled that off.  WARNING: This part was kind of gross.  I wish I took pictures of it so you could see what I mean, but my hands were all fishy, and I really didn't want to be touching my phone.

2. Dice up your onion and bell pepper, and put them into a microwaveable bowl with a little bit of butter.  Microwave for 1-2 minutes, or until soft and cooked a little bit.  I used a Pyrex mixing bowl so that I could combine everything here without having to mess up and clean multiple things.

3. Combine salmon and your egg to the already-microwaved diced bell pepper and onion.

4. Add flour a tablespoon at a time until you have a consistency that will hold together in patties.  I think I ended up using about 3 tablespoons.  Two probably would have been sufficient.

5. Add a bit of salt and pepper.  I just ground some in.  Better to use too little than too much.  You can always sprinkle on some more after you cook them and taste them.

6. Form palm-sized patties and place into a skillet over medium heat where you have already melted a little pat of butter while the pan was heating.

Cook for a couple of minutes and flip. Then cook the other side.  You just want them to cook until they have a nice crust, but not too browned.

I served mine with a little bit of ketchup (not pictured) and a side of English peas.

Bon appétit, y'all!

Hi! This blog has nothing to do with Paris. Except it's the recipes of two friends who went to Paris together in high school, ran around saying "Ou est les sandwiches?" when they couldn't find anywhere to eat, and have been dying to go back ever since. Someday. In the mean time, we can share our recipes and food ideas with each other!